


Anything

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, F/F, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're Auror partners, Draco and Ginny, and they have been coworkers and partners and friends for much too long for Ginny to delude herself that Draco doesn't know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything

They're Auror partners, Draco and Ginny, and they have been coworkers and partners and friends for much too long for Ginny to delude herself that Draco doesn't know. That he doesn't know the way she can't look away from his wife sometimes, that her relationship with Harry didn't fail just for nothing, that she pretended to be the perfect daughter for so long that when she cracked, her entire life fell apart. He got an inkling of the wrongness in her life when Ginny first showed up in his flat to work on a case, and didn't leave for a week. Harry hadn't called, hadn't written, hadn't done anything except moved out of their shared house. Thank Merlin they hadn't been married yet, or else it would've been so much worse.

"We just couldn't get along," she'd told Astoria, Draco's then-girlfriend, a bottle of firewhiskey in her hands, her lipstick smudged onto the glass rim. Draco had bailed on her an hour in, the coward, after it became all too clear that Ginny wasn't there to talk about the Goyle case.

Astoria had shot a glare at his back and said, "He isn't good with _feelings_ ," her voice slightly raised by the end, causing Draco's shoulders to hitch before he disappeared out the door. Once outside, he yelled out something about going to the pub, his heavy footsteps disappearing soon.

Ginny had wondered if any relationship around her (other than her parents', of course) would ever be good.

"I should probably go," she said, not moving from Draco's too-comfortable couch. As prickly as he was, it seemed like he'd decided to do right by his guests and give them a great place to sit. It was better by far when compared to the Malfoy manor, where Lucius and Narcissa, bugger them, still lived.

"Stay," Astoria replied. "I promise to listen."

"Well, Harry is an arse, you should know," Ginny began. It was the most biased diatribe she'd ever voiced, and Astoria listened and nodded and let her talk.

"You want to tell me the truth now?" Astoria asked.

"I want to get drunk."

Astoria levitated another glass of firewhiskey into Ginny's open hand and Ginny drowned the words she wanted to say in its sharp burn. _He's got a dick and I got tired of pretending to like it,_ she could've said. _He's a martyr and I'm human. And it just won't ever work out like it did in my childish dreams._

But she didn't, because she hadn't ever breathed a word about it all to anyone. Not Harry, not Hermione, not Luna. She wasn't about to start now.

Instead, she handed the bottle to Astoria, who'd been a stranger a couple hours ago but was now possibly, maybe, one day a friend. When they were both too drunk to care, Ginny laid her head on Astoria's shoulder and embraced the pleasure of Astoria's fingers running through her hair.

"I think I know now," Astoria said, but she didn't elaborate, and Ginny wouldn't speak.

She didn't speak of it when Astoria officially moved in with Draco, when the two of them married and couldn't decide whose side of the wedding Ginny would stand on, when she stood as Astoria's maid of honor as her sister Daphne glared, when Astoria came back from the honeymoon and said she wished the rose-tinted phase had lasted longer, when Draco started staying longer at the office, when Draco started coming over to Ginny's comfortable couch on the nights that Astoria wasn't there, when Astoria's glances became filled with something more and Draco's with something less.

And when she sat at her desk one morning and thought about her two amazing friends, she didn't let herself think about the way her heart broke whenever she wished them luck or tried to fix their marriage.

A couple minutes later, Draco entered the office, his eyes brighter than they had been in years. He placed a sheet of paper on Ginny's desk and dropped his suitcase on his own.

"We filed our divorce papers yesterday," Draco said as Ginny confirmed it with her own eyes, lingering on Astoria's elegant signature. Ginny's heart caught in her throat. Her future had seemed to be going along a straight path, unchanging, unrequited love--because Ginny was so good at unrequited love, so good that she knew she didn't try hard enough to escape its trap--for on and on and stupidly on. And now. And now. And now there was a possibility that Ginny almost couldn't bear to think of.

"Why?" she whispered.

"We just can't get along," Draco said. He rubbed his hand along the wrinkle on his forehead. "I should hate you, really."

He went over to the door and walked out as another person walked in, another blonde and beautiful person, one Ginny had loved for much too long.

"Congratulations?" Ginny said, the word a question and a plea.

"Thank you," Astoria said. She walked closer until her robes almost touched the desk where Ginny sat. "But it's only something I'll be able to celebrate if the woman I fell in love with loves me back."

Ginny leaned in and kissed her, saying, "Yes, yes, yes," against her lips. For the first time, she let herself think of what was possible.

_Anything._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
